THEMES: Peace Cultures

The quest for peace and the cultivation of cultures of peace reside at the heart of the Center's work. These resources explore the complex questions of what peace actually is and how best to achieve it.

The Interplay of Creativity, Peace Building, and Education

This recent May 2014 seminar featured eduction professors Stephen Gould and Bernice Lerner in dialogue with Boston-area university students on the topic "Creativity, Peace Building, and Education." Read »

Wider: The Poetic Heart of Human Possibility

To celebrate the publication of The Art of True Relations (Dialogue Path Press, 2014), co-author Sarah Wider spoke at the Ikeda Center on the topic, "The Poetic Heart of Human Possibility." Read »

Examining Our Assumptions About Peace and the Military

On October 17, 2013, members of the Ikeda Center staff traveled to George Mason University to co-host a seminar examining our cultural assumptions about peace and the military. Read »

Harding and Ikeda: The March on Washington

In America Will Be!: Conversations on Hope, Freedom, and Democracy, Vincent Harding and Daisaku Ikeda devote an entire chapter to the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of August 1963. Read »

Juan Somavia: Living Up to Our Principles

In this 1997 interview, Juan Somavia, former Director-General of the International Labor Organization, considers the interplay of values and policy in creating cultures of peace. Read »

This May 2003 event featured influential thinkers Michael Nagler and Frances Moore Lappe exploring the complexities of creating cultures of peace. Read »

Nonviolence As Civic Virtue

Nick Gier of the University of Idaho argues that nonviolence deserves a place among the great virtues such as loyalty, courage, integrity, and compassion. Read »

Peace Culture: Living with Difference

In this keynote from 1999, Elise Boulding argued "that we have gone through a century of what I call 'premature universalism.' That is, we are all one and there is one set of values and one way to do things." That was colonialism, she said.Read »

Celebrating Into Full Flower

In March 2010, the Center celebrated the publication of Into Full Flower, by Elise Boulding and Daisaku Ikeda. Due to health issues, Dr. Boulding could not make it, but her son Russell was on hand to share memories and reflections. The other speakers were the Ikeda Center's Virginia Benson and Boulding's biographer, Mary Lee Morrison.Read »

The Beauty and Strength of Peace Building: An Interview with Mary Lee Morrison

How can we promote values of peace and nonviolence in a society steeped in a culture of war? Elise Boulding biographer Morrison tackles this question and more.Read »

A Beautiful Fulfillment: A Tribute to Elise Boulding by Virginia Benson

Virginia Benson composed this essay to honor her friend and mentor, the peace scholar and activist Elise Boulding, who died in 2010. Read »

Ikeda Center friend and advisor Elise Boulding (1920 to 2010) founded the nation's first Peace Studies program while Professor of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire.